Xemo: Robot Simulation Demo

Robots have come a long way in the last two or three decades, given the fact that some of the most advanced ones are able to walk, run, or even climb stairs with barely any issues. Granted, they are still far away from being complete autonomous or convincing enough to pass for a real human, but the technology is constantly evolving, so it shouldn’t be too long until that becomes a reality as well.

Xemo: Robot Simulation is an educational video game in which you get to toy with a robot and use its joints to create your own movement patterns. Although this is mostly designed to teach students about robotics and provide them with a clear and approachable simulation, everyone can have a bit of fun with it, especially if you are interested in the field.

The robot under your control comes with thirteen different joints and a total of 24 degrees of freedom, so you are free to create a variety of motions, such as walking or jumping. To make things even better, the game features a rigid-body physics simulation, which looks and feels quite realistic. Thus, you can observe your experiments in a realistic environment and maybe even apply some of the things you learn in real life.

There’s a bit of fun included with the simulation as well, because you can use the robot to compete in a few events and see whether you have the skills to make it overcome a variety of obstacles. Not only that, but there’s also a pattern and a joint editor too, which provides you with even more freedom to test your theories or just fool around for a bit.

The gravity well comes in handy when you want to pose the robot and you want to ignore realism and just focus on getting each joint in the desired position. Speaking of which, the interface is as straightforward as it gets, since you only need to use the mouse in order to click on the joints, as well as a couple of sliders in order to rotate/move them as you please.

In the end, Xemo: Robot Simulation does not have enough content to be categorized as an actual game, but then again it’s in early access at the moment, so more is probably going to be added in the future. However, it’s a brilliant tool for educators who want to engage their students with a highly interactive simulation that is both fun and educational at the same time.